The first descriptor I attached to Donald Trump, back when he took the lead in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, was “empty vessel.” He was never that.
More recent epithets I have used include “carnival barker” and “master of disaster.” He’s much more than those.
Peer beyond the night fog emanating from those who consider him a new Hitler and those who worship him as a sort of messiah: In the light of empirical reality, Trump towers over the first quarter of the 21st century like no other political figure.
I understood the forces that propelled him forward — I thought that they were of world-historical importance. But I never gave much credit to the man himself.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
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Martin Gurri is a former CIA analyst and the author of The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. Adapted from City Journal.
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